adaptevsadaptéesWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: adapte is a verb, adaptées is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“adapte” is a verb and “adaptées” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#10,269
“adapte” frequency rank
#11,336
“adaptées” frequency rank
21605
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature adapte adaptées
Definition Première personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent du verbe adapter. Féminin pluriel de adapté.

Where the eye mixes adapte and adaptées

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.

6 ch
adapte
8 ch
adaptées

Why the eye confuses adapte with adaptées

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: adapte is \a.dapt\ while adaptées is \a.dap.te\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 21605, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

adapte is recorded at frequency rank #10,269, classified as averb, pronounced \a.dapt\. adaptées is at rank #11,336, tagged as anadj, pronounced \a.dap.te\.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 21605, this pair ranks #362,311 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of adapte vs adaptées

Shared letters: adept. Private to "adapte": -. Private to "adaptées": .

"adapte" · 6 letters · shape VCVCCV  ·  "adaptées" · 8 letters · shape VCVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • adapteaadpte · adapet · adappte · adaptte · adatpe · addapte · adpate · daapte

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "adapte" and "adaptées" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "adapte" is a verb and "adaptées" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "adapte" or "adaptées"?
"adapte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,269 in our French list, against #11,336 for "adaptées". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "adapte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "adaptées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #362,311 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "adapte" and "adaptées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "adapte vs adoptez". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #362,311 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list